guitar:Me
wrapper:Me
mix and mastering:Jascer

I come from a city where lost angels fall – and pawn rusty trumpets to buy used cars – with bumper sticker slogans read to slow traffic – on hoopties with humvee gas drinking habits
Like actors turned waiters turned idle alcoholics – Mulholland driven heights view a city sprawl it is – smog haze depression still I watch with discretion – redlined communities devise harsh lessons
You can find what you want under the hot Cali sun – cookie cut, ghetto, rich, first wave migrants – fake tits, weathered hands tinted eyed cool ones – raw life breaths behind boulevard store fronts  
Parched in a city that robs watersheds – depart from my home to where I was bred – Manufactured landscapes urge me to escape – to be one with the wildlife I hope you relate.
[Chorus]: ..if you do than – than keep it moving
Cuz we’re moving [moving] reaching for the new – by the sun in the sky and the fresh morning dew
We hold it down [hold it down] – hold it down for the truth, that we anchor in ourselves when we dig with our roots
And cognize [recognize] – new points of views –keep our souls free to feel other people’s shoes
And those possessive of their wealth – will quake in their boots – While I watch my world open with nothing to lose
A fisherman of deep I gather food for thought - Feeding from the deep with pen poised to write plots - Preserve words in stories kept chest freezer cool - thaw old stories when I run outta fuel
My ship mast stretches to the wind of my breath - irrigate streams of consciousness, flow till nothings left - This penmen ship drifts my  memories overseas -  and in a way, the more deciphered the less there's to say
A phone disconnects to let me recharge - outta service mid ocean I stand on a barge - view horizons liquid, look up I see stars - still my homeland's heartbeat bustles with cars 
that’s why I keep my eyes peeled for my city streets - so look out for me like a vacant taxi - as I look back starving people ready to eat - its hustle time folks, who's down to ride with me?
[Chorus]:
Organic blue kernel in a yellow cornfield - I got GMO suspicion for all this high yield – cosmopolitan consumption diminishes the self – in a tacky new breed of wannabe Western wealth
But the desires are real – with cultural concessions – society is in a state of retrograde progression – Paternal government grandfather knows best – Sheltering kids with material content
And the clueless kids who want soap opera love – in status quo security that will never be enough – Tradition, progression or all of the above –  redefinitions blurry I resign to what’s what
so give me the truth bluntly like money in red envelopes –  History made personally and rescaled into scope - Is this post-communist era young money rich China? – I see capitalism claiming home after poverty’s diaspora

To and From

If time was a medicine that healed all wounds – then let me savor the bitter nights that sing for dying moons – dear life time trader I’m barely holding on – the way work patterns make time pass too soon
Sometimes too fast for memories my mental photographs – hasty looks with shaken hands have blurred the pictures of the past – like a landscape shot behind the glass of a bus - Wish I time lapsed photographed the trees growing up 
You can stand your ground or shift your perspective – it’s all up to you cuz you make what’s relative – relative (sister)brethren beyond blood we’re next of kin – I express to progress but at times I get hesitant
Like a writer on the edge of an old flat planet – cyphers circulate to show me fine points of the orbit – may that movement make me and edge of a machete – slicing through mangrove jungles to find medicinal remedy.
[Chorus]
[cuz] The vice tightens - with every clockwise turn - but its pressure I need - to hold my work firm –
There’s time to work that’s time we trade – there’s time to give and time we free – the only times we get to keep – are nested in our memories
Verse 2:
Time was an old man I met on the street – I invited him in for a cup of coffee – although he had a tight schedule to keep – he graciously obliged to sit with me
So we spoke of family and he mentioned his  daughter - by the name of Hour gave birth to 60 Minutes – modern pressures of a family affords no visits – or when they do their eyes are always phone fixated
I’ve been fixated myself with broken watches – cuz when time stands still its suspends my problems – and everything lifts with that weightlessness – but prolonged flights high become a mid-air crisis
He said he understands that’s why he keeps on keeping on – grounding beats into his walk, turning sound into song – I told Time “thanks for the chance to catch up” but as he disappeared he asked “With what?”

Know Time

The sky is the mind and my thoughts drifting clouds – when the city scrapes the sky torrents rain down – but the storm drains can’t contain the flooding rain’s message – muddled puddles of grime obscure my reflections

There and back again back to the backwoods of Oregon – to find my peace of mind in a secluded cabin – driving through the snow at night my rig is like a spaceship – my senses sharp and clear, arrowhead obsidian

On oneiric nights I’m a big dipper sipper – connecting dots of a celestial candelabrum - motivation for the seeker, inspiration for the dreamer – totem poles animate the visions of the seer

I’ve seen an Eden in these woods the garden of the gods – Forest defenders fight for a spiritual cause – corrupt clear cutters cut sacred backyards – stand up with our trees to contest twisted laws

Often quiet but ill raise a flag for our riot - Despite injustice, I’m uplifted by the mountains – Fresh air cleans my lungs, panorama robs my breath – Thinking I could die here in these laurels I could rest

But I feel alive, a light glows over a standing dead tree – penetrating dappled shade of the forest canopy – In reverence with the ancients to what the sun sees – a human in nature human nature in me

Cuz I’m blessed to be here in the fresh northwest – where the Rogue River flows through my veins to my bones – blessed to be here in the fresh North West – where the Rogue River flow echoes songs for my soul

Uncharted destiny born of the places that I’ve been – on a topographic map of mountains and oceans – false peaks that I reach show me my higher summit – humbled I return for more thorough preparations
On a ridge saddle I straddle duality – on one side city lights shine intricately – on the other herds roam on acres of open pasture – directions change along the creek, I meander 

Blackberry brambles that had sweeter days – obstacles led me on to more solitary ways – I found grace in twists of fate on a branch of manzanita – So I pondered my perception in a grove of ponderosas

A pine cone cracks a clenched fist unfolds – hands open up to gently cradle – infant seeds, beautiful, potent with potential - trees grow to form homes that shelter out the cold

So join us to fit in like mortise and tenon – We work dedicated to a shared conviction - baptized in sweats of labor, we pause for birds of prayer – who stir the skies and raise our eyes to clouds lined in silver

Nature’s lessons are taught in cyclic seasons – So go out to collect sun ripened wisdom – A farmer’s calloused hands gathers food for communion - heart to heart words abreast with love’s redefinitions

Homesteader hospitality keeps me warm from the weather - leave your muck lucks in the mudroom and come in for supper - Community, the mycelium linking family trees –– come taste the memories that I canned like its jam from the pantry 

aheadmahead